Philodemus and Poetry: Poetic Theory and Practice in Lucretius, Philodemus and Horace

✍ Scribed by Dirk Obbink

• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Year: 1995
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 331
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This is an edited collection by a distinguished team of scholars on the philosopher and poet Philodemus of Gadara (ca. 110-40 BC). The discovery of his library at Herculaneum, and the editing and gradual publication of the material, has reawakened interest in the philosophical and historical importance of his work. Philodemus presents us with a poetic theory of interest in itself, and several of his treatises provide us with instances of how poetry was seen as providing moral paradigms and guidance. These essays explore the many facets of Philodemus's work and the relationship between them, offering a critical survey of recent trends and developments in scholarship on Philodemus in particular and Hellenistic literary theory in general.

✦ Table of Contents

Content: Framing the margins of Philodemus and poetry / D. Clay --
Epicurean poetics / E. Asmis --
Epicurean poetics : response and dialogue / D. Sider --
The Epicurean philosopher as Hellenistic poet / D. Sider --
The alleged impossibility of philosophical poetry / M. Wigodsky --
Reconstructing Philodemus' On poems / R. Janko --
Content and form in Philodemus : the history of an evasion / J. Porter --
Philodemus on censorship, moral utility, and formalism in poetry / E. Asmis --
Philodemus on the technicity of rhetoric / D. Blank --
How to read poetry about gods / D. Obbink --
The impossibility of metathesis : Philodemus and Lucretius on form and content in poetry / D. Armstrong --
Satire as poetry and the impossibility of metathesis in Horace's Satires / S. Oberhelman, D. Armstrong.

✦ Subjects

Philodemus, -- approximately 110 B.C.-approximately 40 B.C. -- Aesthetics. Lucretius Carus, Titus -- Aesthetics. Horace -- Aesthetics. Classical poetry -- History and criticism -- Theory, etc. Classical poetry -- History and criticism. Aesthetics, Ancient. Poetics -- History -- To 1500. Philodemus -- Aesthetics. LITERARY CRITICISM -- Ancien